Whether it is relaxing by the pool enjoying vacation with your family or filling in time while traveling to yet another client site, many of us turn to books to fill in this time. If we're feeling motivated, these books are business or technology related to help us keep current in our professional life.

Progress is providing an unexpected boost to anyone looking for that next inspiration. As part of their revamped website, they have started a book club to poitn out new releases in such areas as SaaS, mobile computing, social media and more.

Take a look at the OpenEdge Book Club to grab the leading chapter of these recommended books and start reading today.

Everyone loves a good buzz word. All too often, this love affair leads to assumptions and misplaced trust and we all have heard about what happens when you assume.

Last month, a code hosting and project management service provider was forced to shut down because of failure to use common sense. They advertised full redundancy and kept not only client information in their Amazon EC2 cloud but also backups of that same information. Unfortunately it seems they did not have redundant backups stored elsewhere. While Amazon's EC2 services protected them (as expected) from random failure, they were not protected when attackers hacked into their accounts and, after a failure to extort money, proceeded to delete their various client snapshots, SVN and GIT repositories, server instances and other critical data and backups.

Like any other service, putting something into "the cloud" has its benefits but should never be considered the silver bullet to resolve all of your worries.

While PUG Challenge is void of a lot of fancy marketing and loud crowd pumping music, there are many things the conference doesn't lack. Like, technical sessions, workshops, vendors, and networking. I mean everyone loves a great party, but the real reason for spending the time and money to go to PUG Challenge is to learn - learn how new developments in your Progress software can save your company time and money.

PUG Challenge was born of the desire to learn. Programmers not wanting to have to sift through the rubbish to get to the good stuff. For three full days, you can immerse yourself in Progress OpenEdge technology. There are over 50 technical break-out sessions planned plus 5 workshops, a vendor expo, a Partner track, commercial sessions, "Info Exchanges", an "Offsite Adventure" and endless opportunities to network with your peers and Progress engineers. Whew! (Sounds like a good kind of tired to me!) In just a little less than a month this will all be taking place with or without you.

Of course, with you is better. We'll have more people to network with and you'll have no regret.

On October 22, 2013 Allegro Consultants hosted the Progress User Group meeting with guest speaker Peter Judge, Principal Software Engineer with Progress Software. The topics included Horizontal Table Partitioning and OpenEdge Mobile. With mobile devices becoming increasingly popular, this topic has generated much excitement with our attendees and the majority of the business world as well. More than ever companies are taking a serious look at how they can get a piece of the action. Mobile applications allow people to use free time while out and about to search a specific item, comparison shop, and make purchases online. If a business does not have a mobile application, they may be missing out on opportunities to gain new business.

OpenEdge Mobile makes it possible to connect potential customers to the OpenEdge business logic your company uses every day. OpenEdge Mobile provides everything you need to develop apps for Android and iOS platforms. Mobile applications can be developed easily from the Progress Developer Studio. Design your app using drag and drop functionality to sculpt your user interface. OpenEdge Mobile gives you the ability to add your progress code, your own security protocols, so that your users can access your data. OpenEdge Mobile offers an express setup allowing you to have a basic setup up and running in minutes, offering testing to see your work in action, and a QR code to scan and see your handiwork on your own mobile device.

There are three different types of mobile applications, Native, Hybrid, and Mobile Web app. Native apps are specific to one particular device, which would require building an app for each specific operating system. This type of application would allow full access to features of the device, and distribution of the app on the AppStore, allowing restricted distribution of the app.

The hybrid app is one that would allow you to develop one app for a specific group of devices. Hybrid applications are device specific and use HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. This allows you work with most of the capabilities of the device, and you would also be able to distribute your app on the AppStore, but allow restricted access to the app.

The Mobile Web App uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript and allows you to develop one app for any device. For this app to work there must be an internet connection available. The access to device capabilities is diminished, and there is no native AppStore for distribution or restricting access to the app.

OpenEdge Mobile uses the Hybrid App model which uses the native container and the web application as well. There is no need to learn new programming languages or purchase a specific computer to develop your app. Using the Hybrid approach also allows you to market your app in AppStores your customers are familiar with making it accessible to a wider audience. A hybrid application also gives you access to more functionality of the user’s device which gives a richer experience to the end user.

There are some expenses involved in going mobile. OpenEdge Mobile is only available in version 11.2 and up, so you may need to upgrade your software. OpenEdge Mobile also requires licensing. Depending on the device you are developing for, there are fees to submit your app to Apple or Google as well. It is typically a once a year subscription, and the cost is relatively low.

Connecting a device to your business logic can be made using different techniques, but the use of REST is the recommended method. Typically in the past, SOAP was used to connect the data to the mobile device, but REST is much more flexible and easier to use.

OpenEdge mobile uses drag and drop for the functionality of buttons, maps, and other interface items. Just drag over the fields from the table you are accessing and assign them to the desired display location. Button actions and page calls are all done for you through the intuitive tools of OpenEdge Mobile. Mobile development is just one of the new additions to the Progress Software collection. Join us for our next Progress Users Group meeting to learn more.

I have been developing, designing and breaking things in the Progress and OpenEdge world for over 25 years now. Even so, there's always a chance to learn something new. This can be especially startling when you have to question foundational knowledge. You know, those facts and details that make up the underpinning of your domain of expertise.

I had an opportunity to question my own foundation of knowledge this morning when I was brought into a discussion of how indexes are selected by the OpenEdge engine. This is an area where I am something of an expert. I have presented on this topic numerous times over the years and always manage to shake people up by showing them how what they think may be true is actually not the case. The point is always to increase the depth of their knowledge and enable them to be more accurate in the future when writing queries and examining performance issues.

My turn...

Progress states their index selection criteria as a set of 7 simple rules along with how adjunct rules about when multiple indexes are selected. Unfortunately it isn't as simple as a couple of basic rules because there are unwritten exceptions and further details. Most developers will never run into these problems. Those of us that do will hopefully have a bottle of aspirin handy.

The 3rd annual PUG Challenge Americas was a great success with over 200 attendees from around the world. As one of the executives that organize this user-lead conference, I am very proud of our success.

If you were unable to attend, you really should put it on your calendar for next year. I hope to see you there!